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"Wherefore also I will dare that contest, monstrous as it is, though it be my doom to die. For nothing will fall upon men more dread than dire necessity, which indeed constrained me to come hither at a King's command."

[ Then there's an audio attachment. Nathan has been keeping notes. This comes straight out of them, recorded weeks ago, as honest as the day he made the recording. Each time he speaks about other recordings, there's a file amended into the audio, straight out of the archives. ]

So here's where I'm divided. I've been chasing an idea that this recent reveal was a recording made out of time. Gallagher was looking for imposters, Ward says that 'they' are looking for her. They're not looking for Ward, but Resnik--I don't know about you, but it's Ward I want to get my hands on. The only thing that comes to mind is those boys; they were looking for the captain, whom they claimed was a woman. Here's the thing: back at the beginning, Resnik went out of her way to insist that Ward was in command. Excessively so, I'd say. None the less, it's Ward who seems to do all the dirty work, and we can sure hear which of them is in charge in this recent recording, wouldn't you say?

Time is liquid on this ship. That's the best way I can explain it. Something about the jump drive messes up time itself. It changes the corridors. It makes us sleep for months or years, and who knows what else it's responsible for. I don't know jack about quantum physics, but I know what I hear, and I have a real problem drawing a parallel between the Gallagher we hear in the messages Hotspur found and the Gallagher that Ward and Resnik told us about.

We were told that Gallagher went mad due to the jumps, but five days after the jump, something had happened to the crew, and Gallagher presumably didn't make it the way he'd hoped. Before that he'd been chipper, hopeful. The same Gallagher that comes across in the emergency message that we picked up.

But tell me: Exactly when does this emergency message fit in with the others? The first jump is when everything went wrong, but jumps drove him mad, according to Resnik, and Gallagher speaks outright about people being in stasis. It doesn't make any sense to me, and I keep thinking maybe if I had just one more bit of information I might make sense of it. There's some explanation for it I've overlooked. There's our red text, though, and what's it doing? It's assisting the Captain in an emergency situation. There's imposters on board, the ship's a hive of activity, and there's a system in place to keep the departments optimized, everyone in their place. Now way back when the first wave arrived, Ward and Resnik made damn sure we knew there was no AI on board. But we have it from their own mouth that there's a damage control; emergency protocols. And then there's that quote. What is it that is doomed to complete its task and die, that's under the command of a King, or in this case, a Captain? That's brought about out of dire necessity--what could be more dire than an emergency?

How about damage control?

[ Nathan appears at last on the video. He's wearing the better of his two suits: that is to say, the one with the grayed white shirt and the patch on the breast pocket, rather than the one with greasy sleeves, worn ragged from overuse. The scarlet tie helps him to look almost presentable. ]

The number of people on this ship who remember all of this is becoming smaller than ever. There's hardly any of us left on that list, not including Ward and Resnik, and I bring it up not because I'm preoccupied with being on it, but because it's an indicator to the experience and insight that we've lost. To many of you, Smiley is just a cautionary tale, and Ward is some criminal you saw on the network one time. It's difficult to fathom a time when we could have been working side by side with them.

In my last post, I made a poor effort at convincing you that your time on this ship needs to be taken seriously, or that I was anything more than hot air. I realised keeping my theories close to my chest isn't gonna help anyone; and here's the thing: I run the risk of being wrong. I don't think that's enough reason to stay quiet any more. Now it's done, I don't gotta sit on it arguing with myself over whether it's worth saying.

I'll be speaking to the ship again about other matters after the jump. For now, you're welcome to point out how I'm crazy, otherwise, straight up discussion is always a possibility.

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anyone who says there's not an ai on this ship is either clueless or an idiot and probably both

you don't build something this big and not put a computer in charge of it

Maybe it wasn't in the original designs. We already know the Tranquility's not what it was on paper. It seems a bit extreme to suggest Smiley is anything but an AI, considering what he's capable of, and what he sees.

there had to have been something

The ship's too big. It was too populated, and even with just two hundred people on board we struggle to keep things running. If it wasn't intelligent before, it might have had to become greater than its program.

yes that's exactly what i'm saying

and i asked ward and resnik too about the ai they were incredibly adamant in telling me i was wrong which means of course that i'm right

I picked up on that bit too. Definitely no AI. Absolutely not. They did the same thing when they were questioned about who was in charge, you remember? Ward gets teased that Resnik is the one pulling all the shots, and they go hardcore into insisting he's the one in charge. Dodgy if you ask me.

all on board with that theory yeah

here's one of mine maybe you'll like it

smiley is the ai yes but he's also gallagher

Would you believe it's the second time I've heard that one? Now I guess I should probably ask where you got it from, huh?

likely it's the other way around and they heard it from me

depending on the person you heard it from

either way it's not out of the realm of possibility

Got a few problems with the idea myself. The biggest one is personality. Smiley is chirpy. Gallagher doesn't strike me as having a lighthearted bone in his body, but then lightheartedness wouldn't really go hand in hand with 'captain of experimental secret warship deep space mission' would it?

what so personality changes as a result of being dumped into a computer are out of the realm of possibility now

The computer was pretty cheerful already. Gallagher would have only brought it down.

Seems like an unnecessary complication. And why Gallagher? There's nothing special about him other than the fact he was captain.

So the burden is still on you to offer some proof. This idea didn't come from nowhere, right? What're you basing it on?

you don't know that for sure all we have are a few recordings of the guy it's hardly substantial enough to make those kinds of judgement calls

something happened to gallagher but we don't know what

you don't have any proof for your theories either i'm just speculating based on technology that i know exists

throwing things at the wall to see what sticks i thought that's what this whole post was for

I may not have proof, but I have evidence. I could theorize Smiley is God, but unless I come up with evidence, it's not gonna hold much weight.

Does that technology exist in your world, or are you basing it off the...you know, turning computers into people thing? Because neither of those exist in my world, maybe that's why I find the whole idea such a strange one.

believe me i'm trying to get you your evidence i'm just a bit handicapped at the moment

it's a little of both really

You find it, I'll be more than happy to eat my own words. That said, Smiley hasn't been giving us much to go off recently, has it? Lots of turning our attention away from it, instead.

well yeah of course it's in complete control of the situation it can tell us as much or as little as it likes and there isn't anything we can do about it

not yet anyway

That's what I'm saying. It's not a bad thing that we have to start looking elsewhere.

yes i'm very excited to wander off into the hallways and go crazy

I've never advocated that and I never will.

i was mostly just making a commentary on the idiots who do

You're hard to decipher sometimes; whether that biting sarcasm is personal, or whether it's just the way you roll.

well i'm not going to tell you it would ruin the mystery

We few, we dwindling few.

And only the fun people left. Not even enough to throw a dinner party, but at least it'd be lively.

In my notes I also dictated that I wanted to interrogate you, but I left that bit out. May not be any laws on this slip, but I reckon water torture isn't gonna win me any friends.

Edited (some dropped people aren't disappearing until the jump, and brainnnnz) 2013-08-03 09:55 (UTC)

You don't want to know what I know, Senator. [ REAL NAMES MEAN BUSINESS tvtrope detected ] You want what I know to support what you already believe.

[ Condescending little prat. His voice steps down into something more serious too. ] You and Tony Stark. I'm only interested in the truth, not mine, not Dorothy's, The Truth. Capital T The. You do a good job of hiding it, but you. know. everything.

Is it still Thursday, Caffrey?

Edited 2013-08-03 10:24 (UTC)

Have you asked me? Not when I'd just come back and was still half out of my mind. [ slower this time, each word enunciated. ] Have you asked me?

Because not to put too fine a point on it, but you're hardly the first person I think of on the rare occasions I feel like just volunteering information.

[ Ah, so we're playing the 'two can play at that game' game. There's a pause on Nathan's end. He went in too hard. ]

No, you're right. I haven't. But not to put too fine a point on it, you and your encryptions don't exactly make you seem like you wanna share.

Anything you told me would be told to everyone else; you've gotta be aware of that, too. And maybe I figured you liked holding onto that information too damn much. Stark certainly does.

Edited 2013-08-03 11:40 (UTC)

Says the man keeping an eye on those encryptions. I knew it was worth enlisting Stark's help.

[ neal snorts. ] We're different men who saw different things. If you're asking me to submit to some kind of-- interrogation, fine. But I'm warning you right now that you're not going to like a single one of my answers.

Because that's my job, strangely enough, to keep an eye on security threats on the network, and report what I see. I don't have anything to hide, or some overreaching agenda, except to get myself and everyone else on board this hellship home. The real question is what you have to hide, and who the hell you think you are to decide what other people should and shouldn't know, based on what you think they might like. Don't pretend that it's because I haven't asked you straight. You might be able to get that one over on everyone else but it won't fly with me.

[ Haha fly. No, but, serious business. ]

I was half joking when I suggested interrogating you. I'd settle for you being straight up for once. Tell people what you have to tell them. They have the right to know, and the right to make their own goddamn decisions about what's good for them.

I have empirical proof that I can pretend just about anything I want and it will most absolutely fly with you, but that's neither here nor there. You didn't ask, I didn't tell.

[ nevermind his embracing of a more transparent policy is patently new. ]

What exactly do you think I know? Because I suggest you take me up on my willingness to answer questions before you demand public disclosure.

You were having too much fun playing sing-a-long, pretending you were King of the Metaphorical Hill, and you mighta just come down a rung, but that doesn't mean you're over yourself.

[ Nathan if you keep insulting him ~~even though it's true~~ this isn't going to work very well. ]

You want to do this here, like this? My questions aren't gonna dodge any hard truths.

Oh, you really don't like me.

[ the insulting is better than trying to lie to him-- cons get precious about being conned, it's a careerwide hypocrisy. ]

That's all right, I'm not exactly paying dues to your fan club either-- it'll make this whole thing easier. And you mentioned my locks, might as well put them to use. Do whatever you like with it later.

[ he'd rather nathan not see his face during this, one less layer of mask to put on. ]

Don't get precious on me, Caffrey. Takes a lot for me to like anyone; I don't even give my own brother an easy time of it. Doesn't mean you can't still get me on side. That's just something to be seen, now, isn't it?

[ He switches up to full encryptions now. ]

Let's start with something I know you can answer. Those kids. What were they and who, or what, did they answer to?

The day I start trying to get you on my side, Petrelli, you have much bigger problems than whether or not we grow on each other.

[ the only legit warning nathan gets and it sounds like more douchebaggery, neal's weird like that. ]

They're who they said they were-- people who stayed a little too long out in the wilds and paid for it. And I don't know about answer, but they were looking for Resnik.

[ He does hear the warning though. It comes from taking a fine toothcomb to every little thing Caffrey's ever said. ]

So the ship, getting lost out there, somehow surviving the jumps despite the odds--maims them, makes them crazy, makes them think Resnik's the captain. That sound about right?

What is Smiley, really? You know that one?

Not quite. It's a little more complicated than that.

[ WILL HE ELABORATE

no he won't. dick. ]

Himself.

That bit I got.

You know, for someone who made such a case for his own helpfulness, you really could afford to be trying a little harder. Tell me something I can use.

I don't know what I know.

[ biting off each word carefully, with anger that isn't about nathan. ]

Well that's great. And might I add your typical evasive bullshit answer.

[ He would pity you Neal but the frustration is hard to fight, and Nathan is all tapped out. ]

What do you know, Caffrey? There's clearly enough for you to disagree, for you to tell me I ain't coming close on a whole bunch of stuff, but when you're asked something real it's like you get a mental block. Like you can't give a straight answer even if you wanted to.

And there's your typical bullheaded refusal to see anything but your own point of view.

[ neal's tone raises to a snap, then he sighs. ]

What I meant was: as much as everyone's counting on me holding back something important, it's not like that. Find a mindreader you trust and they'll be able to give you more from me, but all I have is-- I feel things.

[ a beat. ]

And yes, I'm aware of how that sounds.

That's very interesting. Astute.

I'm curious. You say that you run the risk of being wrong. If you had to admit it, where do you think the holes in your own theory might be?

[Ryuuzaki doesn't usually sound this arch, distant, didactic. He's in professional mode; that mode is something he usually hides.]

That emergency message is the problem for me. Everything else I can put on a timeline, even if time is knotted around itself, but as long as that remains unexplained, absolutely nothing is certain.

Smiley saved us one time, from a shipwide sickness that was going to wipe us out, by providing us with a vaccine that had been developed by the previous crew. But the question is--when did they develop that vaccine?

Honestly at this point, I could be wrong just outta the fact that I spent so long thinking about it. That's more or less why I wanted to get it out and put it behind me. If I sat pushing my head against the glass much longer, there wouldn't be much of my face left.

[ And honestly surprised by him, but Ryuuzaki is a strange little man. Strange, but talented. ]

[That frustration, of getting lost in your own thoughts, the knowledge that you're walking in circles and can't seem to find any viable paths outside of the closed system, that's as familiar to L as the backs of his own hands.

When he responds to Nathan, he sounds less removed than he had, more engaged and thoughtful.]

There's always the possibility that we're missing several important pieces of information. If time is a factor, particularly a timeline that may not be as linear as we would otherwise expect it to be, then it may be that we only have part of the picture--like an inset or a magnification of a news photograph. You see a vehicle, but it's hard to tell at first whether it's an abandoned car or an abandoned toy. It becomes a matter of perspective.

In a normal situation, we can place events in sequence and see if any time is unaccounted for. I'm not certain that we have even that ability here. We can determine a sequence of some kind, yes, but it seems like our knowledge of the gaps could easily suffer or be manipulated, and it would be hard for us to tell. You may well be correct about the emergency message; I wouldn't be surprised.

It may also be that this information is being fed to us with full knowledge of the implications of what we've been allowed to see.

Ward and Resnik are unreliable, both in the specific sense of what they were telling us in the past, and in the broader sense of their absence now, but I still don't feel that we can say with any certainty what their ultimate motivations are. All I can say is that I don't trust them. There's a possibility that they're listening to this, but that's all right--I don't think they want or expect my trust, at this point. One thing I think we can say about this ship, accurately, is that there's an apparent capriciousness to all of it.

It's important not to get too attached to a single explanation until we can fully support it, or until the probability is high enough that anything new that you have left to learn will only be a minor detail--or better, the proof you need--not something that throws your earlier conclusions into question.

One important question isn't only how the emergency message fits in, but more specifically whether or not it was Gallagher's last act as captain, or close to it. Is it the end, or is it just another loop in a downward spiral?

[His tone indicates that he's asking Nathan now.]

Edited 2013-08-07 18:13 (UTC)

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